To Paint A Water Lily Analysis

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Ted Hughes’s “To Paint a Water Lily” tells about an artist painting a scene of nature, and his choice to focus on a water lily. The poem also shows how the artist has two ways of thinking about nature. One way the artist thinks about nature is as a violent and scary thing.The artist also thinks of nature as a thing of beauty and grandeur. Though the artist acknowledges both of his views towards nature, he chooses to focus on the beauty. Through the use of diction and irony the author successfully reveals the artist’s attitude towards nature and his task. Hughes use of diction helps emphasize the artists contrasting thoughts on nature. The author chose words with opposing connotations in order to show “the two minds of this lady”. The author chose words with negative connotations to represent the violent and scary side …show more content…

Most people would expect the artists painting to be monopolized by one perspective of nature. However, the artist incorporates both the violent and beautiful sides of nature. The artist explained how “the long-necked lily-flower which, deep in both worlds, can be still as as a painting” (Hughes 22-24). The artist proves how the even if beauty is surrounded by negativity, nature 's beauty will not be consumed by its violence. Most people would also expect the artist to put an emphasis on nature 's violence, especially after the repeated mention of the violent parts of nature. From “The flies’ Furious arena [to the creatures that] crawl that darkness with Latin names” (Hughes) there is not mention of many objects with beauty. Even though the artist knows that there is a lot of violent things in nature, he choses to put a focus on the water lily. Because the artist incorporates both violent and beautiful parts of nature, with an emphasis on the water lily, one can infer that the artist want to create a realist painting, but not dwell in the